Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good (www.inequality.org). Chuck is also a co-founder of Wealth for the Common Good, a network of business leaders, high-income households and partners working together to promote shared prosperity and fair taxation. He is co-author of The Moral Measure of the Economy and with Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes

“A powerful coalition of U.S.-based global companies is lobbying hard for a “tax holiday” on offshore profits.

“Companies like Google, Apple, Pfizer, and General Electric have parked huge amounts of profits — a stash totaling more than $1.4 trillion —in offshore tax havens. They’ve stowed those funds abroad primarily to avoid having to pay federal taxes on that income.

“But now they want to bring their treasure to the United States, albeit at a steep discount on what they owe the IRS. Instead of paying the statutory corporate income tax rate of 35 percent — or even the “effective rate,” which for most global companies, is closer to 11 percent — they’re urging Congress to let them do this at a tax rate that’s a whisker over 5 percent.

“They tell Congress they need a “tax holiday” to free up badly needed capital to invest in right here — creating jobs at a time when the U.S. economy is sputtering…”